If the federal Conservatives really intend to run their next election campaign as the fiscally prudent option, having “emptied the public purse far into the future, ratcheted up the deficit to historic highs and bloated the bureaucracy to unprecedented size,” the National Post’s Don Martin says they’re going to have to do some hard-core demonization of the Liberals. But that might not even be enough. Aha! Some hard-core demonization of the Liberals and the coalition they’d inevitably form with the NDP and Bloc Québécois, then! Mild-mannered Jim Flaherty’s an odd choice to mount such an argument, says Martin, but there he was yesterday, ranting away to a Canadian Club audience that was rolling its eyes, whispering “under furrowed brows” and “groan[ing] … when Mr. Flaherty’s script soared over-the-top, which was often.” The Liberals have no credibility when they disavow coalitioneering, it says here. But it seems entirely possible The Madness of 2008 has faded from the public consciousness, and if this is the best the Tories have to offer … yikes.

The Toronto Star’s Thomas Walkomasks a series of very trenchant questions with regards to Gerard Kennedy’s private member’s bill that would welcome American “war resisters” to Canada, so long as the wars they’re resisting aren’t sanctioned by the UN. (Clever, eh? It’s about Iraq, but it’s not about Iraq.) For example: Mr. Kennedy says he doesn’t “want it to become an alternative to the refugee system” — but what if we were dealing with African soldiers resisting a non-UN-sanctioned war? How and why would Mr. Kennedy say no? The most trenchant question, however, is this: “Can we welcome foreigners fleeing a war — however pointless — that we insist our own soldiers fight?” No, we can’t. And whether or not Walkom realizes it, he’s proven just how unsalvageably ridiculous Mr. Kennedy’s idea is.

On his Globe and Mail blog, Rob Silver argues Michael Ignatieff has a golden opportunity to turn the Quebec City arena, which the Conservatives seem eager to fund, “into a striking symbol of a government — and two opposition parties — completely out of touch with the reality of Canadians from coast to coast.” We agree, except it should all be in the past tense. Mr. Ignatieff had such an opportunity until he lined up foursquare behind the Conservative position. No golden opportunity begins with abandoning your previously held position solely for political expediency.

The Ottawa Citizen’s Dan Gardner explains, in terms so simple Stephen Harper and Mr. Ignatieff could understand them, why the massive death toll in the war on drugs in Latin America is pretty much all our fault. At some point, he speculates, the situation could become so dire that politicians in drug-producing nations won’t keep quiet about it anymore for fear of offending Washington. And if California can vote on legalizing marijuana, we in turn have no excuse for accepting the status quo as inevitable.

The final countdown
Whoah, look out. On the day of a crucial vote in the long-gun registry debacle, it’s an editorial board slap-fight! The Globe’s editorialists argue that the $4-million figure commonly cited for the annual care and feeding of the long-gun registry is very, very wrong, and go so far as to criticize journalists — as doesMaclean’s Colby Cosh — for swallowing it. But on their blog, the Citizen’s editorialists suggest the Globe misread the Canadian Firearms Program evaluation report (the portion of which in question was almost incomprehensible). By the Citizen’s reading, it seems eliminating the registration component of the Canadian Firearms Program would indeed result in a maximum savings of $4-million. We’re pretty sure they’ve got it right, and the Globe’s got it wrong. But we’re also pretty sure that there’s more to the story. As Cosh notes, “Treasury Board estimates … put the combined operating and transfers cost of firearms registration at $22-million.”

In the Citizen, Hayder Kadhim dons the mantle of absolute moral authority bestowed upon him by having been shot at Dawson College and explains that dismantling the registry would be “disrespectful” to the victims of both Kimveer Gill and Marc Lepine. The most infuriating line is this: “The rational debate has been settled for a long time.” Well, no. It just hasn’t. In fact, this is a notable issue on which very intelligent people of different ideological stripes tend to disagree very intelligently. “Irrational” is forming policy in the heat of the moment or as a memorial to murder victims — who wouldn’t have been saved by the policy anyway — or keeping it because it would be “disrespectful” to them to get rid of it. We’re running a country here, not a middle school.